Diary of a Community Garden
19 January 2010
A wee update from the lads at the Community garden. On Wednesday we cracked into the soil in the old corn patch, bent a few tines on a couple of forks but eventually cleared this. The Boys used old timber to create a garden edge. Tyler and I went on a mission to find seed spuds for free. Went to Luisetti and had no luck they don’t sell them but got 20 sacks for pinecones etc. Visited Lyall Park Joinery to arrange a blackboard sign for the front gate. Mark is happy to do this for us. Good chap!!! Mitre ten gave us some out of date flower seeds but had no seed spuds - came back to the garden pleased but a little dejected. Our savior came in the form of the office staff at High School - turns our Glenda's husband grows seed spuds for sale. Sam taught Tyler how to plant some pumpkin seeds- we may be too late but worth a shot.On Thursday Pete came to give us the principles of organics’ (Cheers Pete) this was insightful for us all. Steve Liddell arrived with a water blaster and Tyler began the task of ridding the moss on the concrete paths. Alex and Sam began clearing and pruning the raspberry patch. I trotted over to dear Glenda in the office only to find a huge sack of spuds I could barely carry!!! What a girl she is. Boys and I began planting the corn patch with spuds. Had to turn off the water blaster as Mary Garrard arrived for a tour of the flower garden, having Mary around is like having the queen mother - she is so great with the Lads. Mary is in the Soroptimist Club and is off to find a group of dedicated ladies to help us name and clean up the front garden. Mary will ask them if they would make the garden the project for the year. Wow brilliant!!!!! Boys still water blasting path!!
Friday - help arrived today in the form of Alan Rhodes, Alan is 72 years old and is a "machine". By lunch time the lads had cleared the garden by the artichokes, turned over the soil under the old strawberry cage and broke one spade in soil which was like concrete, and had planted Radish, carrots, parsnips, dwarf beans, Swedes and cabbages and another row of those seed spuds. Alan is a diamond and is in the Lions Club - he is now off to enlist some chaps to help the lads and arrange a little funding!!! Boys still water blasting path!!
25 January 2010
Wow how the week flew. Monday saw Alan Rhodes arrive to give the lads a garden tour of his vege patch and hook up the trailer to collect horse pooh and some serious graft in the morning. The afternoon was spent making Rhubarb Syrup; a quick trip back to Alan’s to drop of a sample.
Alex and Tyler began work stripping the glass house and giving it a once over. Tyler completed as much of the path as we could reach at this point. We will be able to do more once overgrown plants are cleared etc. Kaz arrived to help with brochures for the garden. Kaz is Sam’s girlfriend and is here on a break from the UK. What a gem. Sam and the boys began work on the chicken coup, making it sturdy and closing the gaps (no unruly chickens here). Who wants to sponsor a Chicken at the community garden – less than a late a week.
Phil Greenlee came to speak to the team about Horticulture ITO course. Fleur West will assist us with this. Sue and I interviewed Vivienne for the last position and as Alex said “We are now complete”
Thursday dawned a beautiful morning and we headed to Huntsbury Hill
to Robin Woodsford’s organic vineyard. Robin is selling his
Pinot Noir to the European Market. What a great chap! Selection of
scones for morning tea – thanks Robin and Sue. Off to Lyttleton
Community Garden. What a fantastic place. Well established now after
four years and what a view. We then headed to Spreydon Community Garden
– Christine was a mine of information and the composting that
is
going on here is fantastic. I think we all realized how luck we are
to have some established trees etc. Both of these gardens’s
worked well on a sweat equity basis with no group or individual plots
– just working for the greater good which allowed people to
come and go from the garden without committing huge amounts of regular
time.
Friday saw the arrival of Mary Gerard, Joan, Anne and Sheila to assist the team with beginning the clearing of the front garden. Thanks to Kitty Waghorn we were able to shoot to the dump. We still do not have an office for the team and a troop of about 15 descended on Grant Chivers at the Baptist Youth House – Grant was happy however (hot Scones and Sally Lunn Buns) We are looking forward to a space of our own. By the close of the day the trailer was once again full. Mulch was applied to what we have cleared and the cap was removed from the Tussock Vineyard Pinot Noir for us all to try…Young pallets do not appreciate wine – so a very lucky Steve and Leanne had a quite tipple that evening. All in all a successful week in the garden.
Monday 1 February 2010
This week saw the young people received the first chickens, we were all very surprised about how well they fly when there wings are not clipped. Goodbye silver chicken startled by Leanne and on an adventure at the High School chased by three crazed young people.
Desperate for food I went on a mission to CRT and was startled to discover they had approved some wheat for us. 6 x 25kg bags to be exact….CV weighted down I returned to the team and happy three remaining chickens.
Big week having a general clean up.
The Bayler family (thanks Mum and Dad) donated a propagation house for us which after huge digging the teamed raised up. Brilliant….
Sue arrived at work Friday morning with a key for the office at the garden – it is great now we have somewhere for the gear and a cuppa. I am sure Grant will miss us.
A very clean Mary Gerard in white pants taught Sam how to catch chickens and trim wings. Thanks Mary.
Monday 8 February 2010
Big clean up after the Soroptomist ladies hit the garden again. Steve from the High School lent us his cage trailer. There are issues with responsibility with borrowing this. Never the less had it loaded.
Pam Donnelley arrived to offer to teach our team how to plant Saphron she had spare corms she would like to share. We droved up to her place to see her venture. She has also offered us all manner of manure from the Mules, Alpaca, Pigs and Horses on her place. All we need is a trailer and a tow bar.
Wednesday saw a field trip to the fantastic Stone Circle Farm with Michelle and John. Thanks to Pete Vink for the contacts – what lovely people and informative morning. We went to Amberley Seedling Trees to look at Alison and David’s place. Amazing really, they have pine nut pine trees growing too so good to see. Had to stop at Nor Wester for a coffee and Tyler had his first hot chocolate and first time in a café!
Thanks to Roger Alexander for taking our trailer to the refuse station
this day.
Vivienne and I went on a mission for seed raising mix for the prop
house at Rangiora Landscape Supplies and Mike Winter is keen to help
us in any way. We left there with a quick tire change (flat), 4 bags
of seed mix and a truck load of vege mix delivered to us. The glasshouse
was then emptied of soil and fresh mix was bought in. The seedling
tomatoes I planted 3 weeks ago I hardly recognized they were so big
as we planted these in.
Vivienne has planted flower seedlings for the prop house and Link arrived with their winter vege seedlings in trays and ready for the prop house too.
Phil Greenlee’s arrived and signed the team up to Hort ITO apprenticeships. We talked about different contacts for field trips and we can gather points for doing this.
The missing silver chicken came back today and is roosting in a tree in the garden…Happy days.
Friday Anne Devlin will be discussing different intelligences and learning styles with the team, Anne works with gifted young people and is also a brilliant gardener which is where we met her.
Joan Sheerer used her contacts and today PGG Wrightson has offered us irrigation for the garden. Brilliant!!
Apart from the front flower garden which is nearly done we are pleased with progress and want to begin the development stage now.
Monday 15 February 2010
On Saturday the team went to a sustainable living course at the Curators Garden with Louise (head gardener) and Rhys Tayler (Sustainable Living). What a fantastic day – better than I imagined. Sue met us there and we walked through the garden. Lots of knowledge to gain and all of the girlies had there note pads out – thinks the lads must have brilliant memories! Food from the garden was served by the Curators house and we all ate flowers – including sweet peas, calendula, and nasturtium - Brilliant.
Sue arrived with organic seed and some from her granny’s place – thanks Sue. Will give you a plant when they grow.
Monday night was budgeting course at the Rangiora Baptist Church and lovely “Pud” thanks Carol and Paddy!!! (A great thing for young people)
Tuesday was spent clearing and opening the entrance way of the flower garden.
Tyers are beginning to arrive for our raised beds for people in wheel chairs. (What a great Husband!)
Wednesday saw the arrival of Damon Jones from PGG Wrightsons regarding the irrigation. What an incredible gift. He plans to have it in place in a month – lucky it is the off season for the dairy farmers. He will allow our team to work along side and learn some of this – i.e. water flow etc.
We began our pottage garden today and hope to have this planted for the opening. Mike Winter from Rangiora Landscape Supplies have again come to our rescue with vege mix by the truck load. And Trevor Shadbolt from Mainpower is going to magic us up some edging from old poles etc.
Great news – I got to work to find Vivienne sitting with a chicken in her lap – she had caught “Billie the hunted one” (who had evaded us all) on her own. I held my first chicken as Vivienne trimmed the feathers – a first for her too.
Thursday arrived with rain so Stone Carving with the link team was
cancelled. We decided due to rain we should come back to mine for
a cooking lesson. We made (and ate) pizza, cinnabons, flat bread,
herb rolls, garlic aioli, herb dressing and tomato soup!!! Then the
team went to the library to study. Vivienne – roses
Tyler – crop rotation
Sam – organic hydroponics
Alex – worm farming
Our darling Soroptomist team are coming to help tomorrow morning and I have made a pound cake with our very own eggs (requires 6) for morning tea.
Sue and Paddy have both had wins for the garden with Rotary committing some money for a trailer and Paddy managing to get us some grain storage bins. Wonderful!Monday 22 February 2010
Monday is always a catch up day and checking the number of eggs for the weekend normally get three, so unsure which chicken is letting the team down.
Vivienne went to have work experience at Fi’s flowers and loved it. Fi asked her back as she had golf and pool opening to contend with. Think we have a budding florist in our midst.
Tuesday we met a wonderful lady Terese Drake who is leaving the country and gave us a multitude of pots, shade cloth, labels etc with the promise of plants when she leaves also. Thanks Terese, it is true – one mans trash is indeed another’s treasure and we are so grateful.
Chris Duggan from Waste exchange came to talk about setting up a worm farm and discussed how we go about this he is so passionate about it. I know Rangiora High School is a potential resource for food so we are considering how we can utilize this.
Wednesday the saddest chickens in the world arrived thanks to funds from Richard Smith and Tessa who purchased “Henrietta”. We knew these chickens would be feather challenged but they have baboon bums! Still with a wee bit of love who knows.
Great to see the link team this Wednesday, thanks guys.
After three really hot days the naughty team from the garden went for a swim during the day and I am pleased to say I helped one of my team learn to swim. Now, I know that is not horticulture but what an investment!!!
The wonderful Damon from PGG Wrightsons was scoping the garden for our irrigation, checking mains pressure etc.
Vivienne was so lucky on Friday with the chance to assist Mary Gerard with wedding flowers. A lovely white wedding with roses and white hydrangeas, I know she loved it, a great experience.
Sunday Leanne and Sue went to Phyto Farm for a course on medicinal
herbs. We are keen to include some of these in the new pottage. We
also had a weed salad of fat hen, chick weed, dandelions etc really
pushed my ideas of food but truly lovely.
Monday 1 March 2010
Clayton Cosgrove came and had a morning cuppa with our young people and he really saw the value of what we are doing here. We are all hoping he will go and talk to the right people so that we may find some funding to continue our work here.
Leanne, Alex and Sam went to Woodend Nursery and Riverside Horticulture to see if we could meet with Stuart and Andrew. Unfortunately we should have booked appointments as everyone was busy. Had a good look around operations though.
Paddy and Carol Henderson called in to discuss Rangiora Baptist Church “One Big Saturday” we are hoping to establish a children’s garden during the time they are here.
Thursday was a beautiful clear day and we went on a field trip to Moffat’s Flower Company, Lenny Arkenstein was our tour guide. The glass houses are hydroponic and kept at 28 deg winter and summer. Everything is computer controlled here so for the first time we understood that not only do you need the Horticulture background you also need a computer background.
Our great Soroptimist Ladies came on Friday again and the front of the house is starting to look good. There is far more light too. We do seem to have some issues with twitch though.
Rhys Taylor from Sustainable living came to discuss seminars with Alex and Sam. We met Rhys at the Curators Garden.
Monday 8 March 2010
Our young people trenched potatoes and weeded saffron and gave the garden a general tidy up. Our produce is beginning to come on stream. I have contacted the RBC Food Bank to collect this.
Simon from Presbyterian support set up a computer for us. Fantastic thank you so much!
We had a cunning plan to raise funds by selling our bamboo and Tyler began cutting these to length and bundling - however seems we have to store these for some time before we can use these – so back to the drawing board.
Mark Bradshaw from Fernside Trees gave our young people cutting experience
which was great and a bit of a look around their company. Thanks Mark.
Friday morning was beautiful and clear as we set of to Ellerslie Flower show thanks to free tickets from Radio Network. We had a look around and met Louise from the Botanic Garden who advised us to look at their work in the Star Light Marquee and the Punts Man. Then it began to rain and pour, we stood in cues in the rain while Alan Rhodes who was with us managed to find a spot under some ladies umbrella every time – my lads were impressed by his smooth moves and will need some lessons in this as well as gardening.
Fleur West met with Telecom on this day to arrange a phone line into our office – thanks so much. We are nearly set up!
Monday 15 March 2010
Sam and Tyler made drying racks in the shed for our bamboo canes which look great.
Peter Bayler dropped off an old chair for the garden which was in need of repair and the lads set about fixing this.
Vivienne and I planted the center of our pottage garden with root cuttings from my garden. We are still awaiting our edging from Mainpower which is due to arrive tomorrow.
My team are helping Mark Bradshaw from Fernside Trees to mulch the Kaiapoi walkway – I hope the weather holds out for them.
Monday 22 February 2010
Monday is always a catch up day and checking the number of eggs for the weekend normally get three, so unsure which chicken is letting the team down.
Vivienne went to have work experience at Fi’s flowers and loved it. Fi asked her back as she had golf and pool opening to contend with. Think we have a budding florist in our midst.
Tuesday we met a wonderful lady Terese Drake who is leaving the country and gave us a multitude of pots, shade cloth, labels etc with the promise of plants when she leaves also. Thanks Terese, it is true – one mans trash is indeed another’s treasure and we are so grateful.
Chris Duggan from Waste exchange came to talk about setting up a worm farm and discussed how we go about this he is so passionate about it. I know Rangiora High School is a potential resource for food so we are considering how we can utilize this.
Wednesday the saddest chickens in the world arrived thanks to funds from Richard Smith and Tessa who purchased “Henrietta”. We knew these chickens would be feather challenged but they have baboon bums! Still with a wee bit of love who knows.
Great to see the link team this Wednesday, thanks guys.
After three really hot days the naughty team from the garden went for a swim during the day and I am pleased to say I helped one of my team learn to swim. Now, I know that is not horticulture but what an investment!!!
The wonderful Damon from PGG Wrightsons was scoping the garden for our irrigation, checking mains pressure etc.
Vivienne was so lucky on Friday with the chance to assist Mary Gerard with wedding flowers. A lovely white wedding with roses and white hydrangeas, I know she loved it, a great experience.
Sunday Leanne and Sue went to Phyto Farm for a course on medicinal herbs. We are keen to include some of these in the new pottage. We also had a weed salad of fat hen, chick weed, dandelions etc really pushed my ideas of food but truly lovely.
March
Adventures
Our young people received their first chickens, we were all very surprised
about how well they fly when there wings are not clipped. Goodbye
silver chicken startled by Leanne and on an adventure at the High
School chased by three crazed young people. I visited the team at
CRT who kindly donated wheat for us. A very clean Mary Gerard in white
pants taught Sam how to catch chickens and trim wings. The missing
silver chicken came back and was roosting in a tree in the garden
until “Billie the Hunted One” was captured by Vivienne
and had her wings clipped. Happy days for chickens.
Achievements
The team set up a propagation house which we and other community groups
are using to raise seedlings for our winter crops. Rangiora Landscape
Supplies have given us all the mix for seed raising and vege mix for
our glasshouse. Thanks Mike for this. I hardly recognized the tomatoes
I planted as seed three weeks ago. PGG Wrightson has offered us irrigation
for the garden, which is just amazing and this means we can press
on with the development of a pottage and raised garden for people
in wheel chairs.
We have had several major clean up’s after the Soroptomist ladies hit the garden. A fantastic effort and such great teachers for our young people. Thanks to Roger Alexander and Alan Rhodes for all your help too, we could not have come this far without you.
Field trips
Our field trips for the month have included the fantastic Stone Circle
Organic Farm with Michelle and John, Amberley Seedling Trees to look
at Alison and David’s place, Nor Wester for one of our teams
first hot chocolate in a café, a sustainable living seminar
at the Curators Garden which included food from the garden such as
sweet peas, calendula, and nasturtium - Brilliant. And a Budgeting
course at the Rangiora Baptist Church and lovely “Pud”
thanks Carol and Paddy!!!
Knowledge
Phil Greenlee’s arrived and signed the team up to Horticulture
ITO apprenticeships. Such a brilliant opportunity and means they are
able to join with other apprentices in study seminars.
Anne Devlin was one of our “in garden expert’s” discussing different intelligences and learning styles with the team and is also a brilliant gardener which is where we met her.
Pam Donnelley arrived to offer to teach our team how to plant Saffron she had spare corms she would like to share.
A brilliant month for the Rangiora Community Garden and thank you to all those people who have contributed in many ways.
May
Diary of the Rangiora Community Garden for May Chatter
Adventures
Our young people had a fascinating trip to Ellerslie flower show;
we were given tickets by Radio Network and had as our guest Alan Rhodes
who somehow always managed to find an umbrella to stand under unlike
us who enjoyed some fine Canterbury rain!
The team from the Rangiora Baptist Church came to the garden for “One Big Saturday” and set up a children’s play area with a sandpit. It looks amazing and is a great place to bring the children for a picnic, with lovely seating for the adults close by. Thanks you to all of the wonderful people who donated their time, energy and creative skills.
Achievements
The team ran a cocktail party recently in the garden on a picture
perfect night serving Rhubarb Syrup (email me for the recipe) and
creating cocktail food from herbs and vegetables from the garden.
Jazz entertainment was provided by Lee Lawrence a multi-talented woman
who many of you will know from Link.
Damon from PGG Wrightsons has completed irrigation for the garden, which is fully automated and will allow us to progress in our growing. We are so grateful.
Field trips
Our field trips have included cutting practice with Mark Bradshaw
at Fernside trees. The fantastic and enthusiastic Sue Bowles gave
us a tour of their sustainable property and we left with a collection
of vintage plant seeds and more knowledge.
Knowledge
Grant Ingles from Hort ITO is arranging work experience for our young
people this month beginning with the viticulture industry.
Fi from Fi’s flowers is hosting Vivienne every Wednesday for work experience and she is just thriving there. Thanks for the investment in time Fi.
Thank you to all those people who have contributed in many ways to the garden so far. We need your ongoing support to continue to make the garden a success.
June
Community Mornings on Thursdays
The Rangiora Community Garden would like to invite you to bring your gardening gloves and come along to a community work morning every fine Thursday at 9.00am and morning tea in the garden will be shared at 10.30am. Meet new people and share your knowledge.
Rangiora High School is hosting the community garden at 115 East Belt which employs four young people as part of the Community Max Program. We have been working in the garden since late January and our produce is now being used to support the soup kitchen at the Breakthrough Christian Centre on Thursdays and produce is also being sent to Women’s Refuge and is helping individuals and families in need.
Winter is on the way and we are harvesting the last of the summer crops. Recently we went to a sustainable living workshop at the Curators House in the Botanic garden with Rhys Taylor; we are planting in our winter crops based around this information in our main beds and pottage garden. Our worm farm is up and running and our Brown Shaver Hens are back on the lay.
Thank you to all those people who have contributed in many ways to the garden so far. We need your ongoing support to continue to make the garden a success.